Outsourcing: Get Things Done Through Others

Have you used outsourcing sites to find people to do things for you? This can range from one off tasks to regular work. I don’t really like the word “outsourcing”, but it does define the process of finding someone who has skills you don’t have or more time than you do.

I’m always on the lookout though for someone with a great attitude as well competency, who has the potential to become part of my team, or whom I can recommend to clients and friends. Starting off with task outsourcing is a great way to find people you’d like on your team on a more regular basis.

I have used freelance sites for many years now and after a few false starts I have a favourite core team of people whom are a critical part of my business. I’ve mainly found my team members on Elance, Odesk and onlinejobs.ph – but had a wonderful experience in the last couple of days using fiverr.com.

I have used fiverr.com before to source writers, but the writing quality was very average, so didn’t end up using any articles. I also tried two graphic designers – one was dreadful, the other terrific! The best part is that it only cost me $5 to try people out.

This time I hired a video editor to add some titles and do basic editing of some client videos we’ll be using for blogposts, and I must say I got lucky and found a great guy, based in the US. He’s talented, capable, communicates often and over delivers! Needless to say I’m already giving him more work, and training him up in a more things so he can provide us with a suite of related services. What a joy when you find someone enthusiastic with a great “can do” attitude!

Review of Outsourcing Sites

There are tons of outsourcing sites around now – but I’m only going to review the ones that I’ve used regularly.

Elance: one of the originals and a great site. I found a fantastic writer there who has done ghost writing, editing and article writing for me now for several years. She’s based in South Africa and is a very accomplished writer and her husband is also a terrific photographer and capable graphic designer. Elance is ideal for project work – where you create a job specification and advertise it on the job board. Alternatively if you don’t want to be inundated with applications you can select providers that meet your skill criteria and ask them to bid privately. You receive bids, shortlist and award the job to one or two people to complete. For writing jobs I usually hire 2 or 3 and then select the best for regular writing work. It’s an easy site to use, great interface and payment system is secure. Has a good rating and feedback system.

Odesk: another excellent site for finding people for one off projects or regular work. Odesk has a useful interface where you can see screenshots of provider’s work on your projects every 10 minutes – a sort of tracking system. This is useful if you suspect them of skiving off checking facebook etc – but frankly I’ve never had this problem. I found a lovely lady in the Phillipines who’s performed a ton of administrative tasks for the past 2 years. I couldn’t be without her. Also met some very highly qualified and talented researchers, and some not so talented researchers and SEO “experts”. You try a few out and eventually you find people with the right attitude and skills. The Odesk system is ideal for hiring people on a regular basis and paying them each week, if you want a part time or full time staff member.

Onlinejobs.ph: you need to pay a monthly membership to get access to the providers contact details, but at before you join you can search the database of providers to see who’s available. I did manage to find 2 talented graphic designers on this site, but neither of them are very reliable. I also found a telemarketer, SEO expert, several wordpress developers and a couple of admin people. Half have been good, half abysmal. You can pay extra and choose from a pool of “screened” applicants which may be worthwhile. I haven’t used this service. You can put up job postings and wade through a heap of unsuitable applicants. I prefer to search the resumes and identify suitable candidates and approach them on this site.

Fiverr.com: this is a wonderful site where you can view thousands of little ads by providers all over the world offering to do a huge range of things for just $5. It’s fascinating to see what people are offering, and it’s actually a very good way for them to promote themselves and find bigger paying jobs. Be warned – trawling through all the offers is great fun and you could get addicted!

Need Help Outsourcing?

Developing a good job specification, finding the right people and managing your team members does take time, patience and the right process. There is a right way and wrong way to go about it.

If you want help, give us a call on 1300 554 495 or shoot us an email. We may “lend” you one of our team members or help you develop your own outsource team.

Hi there. My passion is to inspire and help business owners to create the type of marketing and customer service that makes their business irresistible. I'm privileged to have a talented team at Commonsense Marketing who create and execute beautiful websites, engaging social media campaigns, and fantastic email campaigns that deliver results for our clients. And it's wonderful that many of them have said lots of nice things about the work we’ve done (see our case studies). We love to work with the owners and teams of small to medium sized business who are motivated to become the best in their niche and achieve more than they ever thought possible.